Hypothetical situation: You are the lead car in a car chase. You are traveling 100mph. The cop behind you is also traveling 100mph. You pop out of the sunroof and point your weapon backwards to take out the cop. Your round is faulty, and the slug only leaves your gun going 100mph. Two questions:

1. To a stationary observer, does the slug simply drop to the ground, directly below the point where the barrel was when the gun was fired (assuming it doesn’t hit anything else)? If not, why? If so, why?

2. If the slug hits the police officer, could you argue in court that you didn’t shoot him, but that his high rate of speed caused him to run into the bullet?

Topics: physics, guns, car chases, criminal masterminds, Tina Turner, relative motion